Too often people slip into the bad habit of fundamentalism, confusing the ability to quote scripture and rules with actually embodying truth in their daily lives. Memorization and carefully controlled behavior doesn't do the job. It keeps things safely in the intellect and then we never have to truly confront the heart's urge to open.

But Lalla reminds us:

The search for the Realis no simple matter.

Not only is it not simple, it's messy too. We are confronted by aspects of ourselves that are frightening and frightened, hidden even from our own awareness. History, hopes, angers, ambitions...

Each human life is far too rich and multi-layered to be truncated into the safe, neat, predefined stories we are told to live out. The human soul is not a cartoon, without depth or detail. No, a full spirituality incorporates all that we are. To be holy is to be whole -- nothing left out. The map of the human soul is a topographical map, with mountains and valleys, and rivers of life everywhere. Until we've acknowledged that entire landscape, we only have an incomplete sense of all that we are, and all that humanity is -- that's when compassion collapses, the world appears fragmented, and the vision of Real is lost in the cracks.

Deep in my looking,the last words vanished.

After learning the scriptures, Lalla has swept her mental space clean. Now that's real work! Instead of just memorizing the words of scripture, she has become the blank page that effortlessly displays them.